


Nobody Needs Slave Boys

by TranslatedNotCreated



Category: Original Work
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Branding, Castration, Ear Piercings, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Muteness, No Sex, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Non-Sexual Slavery, Penectomy, Reincarnation, Sad with a Happy Ending, Slavery, Tags Contain Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:48:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 21
Words: 18,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25971607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TranslatedNotCreated/pseuds/TranslatedNotCreated
Summary: This is the story of a slave named Kanto, as told by him. Read about what he experienced in a life of slavery and oppression, the people he's met and the things he learned.Please note that this story was NOT written by me, but by Kerstin Nebelsiek. I stumbled upon her website, read this story and was blown away by it - so I asked for permission to translate it. You can find the German originalhere
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	1. Nobody needs slave boys

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Niemand braucht Sklavenjungen](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/668947) by Kerstin Nebelsiek. 



I was born the son of a slave – and nobody needs slave boys. Had I been a girl, I would have been allowed to grow up as a female. The boys of the tribe may have made their first experiences with the other sex with me and would have secretly slipped me nice things.

Maybe one of the men would have taken me to bed if his wife wasn't in the mood, and would then have kept me as a servant.

But I was a boy. Nobody needs slave boys. Everyone can hit them if they are in the way, haven't done their work properly, or just because they feel like it. I got hit often. Nobody cares if slave boys starve. If I wanted to eat something, I had to collect it out of the garbage bowls. Spoiled fruit, mouldy vegetables, rotten rinds of bread – things the masters didn't want to eat. Sometimes my mother sneaked me something, even though she wasn't allowed to. And sometimes I stole, and was beaten for it. Nobody needs slave boys – but they could have assaulted of the girls, who are only there for the masters. That is why every slave boy is castrated shortly after birth. Most infants die from it, and the mothers often are glad to be rid of the useless burden and to be able to give birth to a girl, instead.

When I was ten, I was no taller than the five year old son of the king of our caravan. I had to work for the largest part of the day and got beaten every time I wasn't able to do it in the way the masters had ordered. When we moved, I had to carry part of the baggage, while the masters' sons circled the caravan on their horses and hit me with their whips if I walked too slow. I gave my best to perform as was demanded of me, because my mother had told me that slaves gained the right to live solely through their work. That I had to obey and be polite, and that everybody was allowed to beat me. And then she slipped me a stolen piece of bread crust, so that I could eat, and caressed me. She was the only one to ever give me anything to eat.

I had never seen an adult male slave. There were three slave boys who were a bit older than me. Sometimes I played with them, and together we stole a mouthful of milk from the udder of a goat or a cow, or a small piece of bread or a fruit from our tribes' supplies.

One day, when we came into a city, the king of the caravan called for the boys, bound them and sold them on the market. He got jewellery in return, which he gifted to his main wife. Nobody needs slaves who are only useless eaters – but jewellery is valuable.

When we came into a city the next time, I hid and didn't come out when I was called. And so I wasn't sold.


	2. What a shaman needs slaves for

Some days later, when we were on our way in the desert again, the shaman called for me. He explained to me that he needed me – as an assistant. He let me do some trivial things and then gave me a whole ripe pomegranate.   
„What am I supposed to do with it?“, I asked.  
„You may eat it. It is for you alone. And then you may sleep in the corner of my tent.“  
Bewildered, I stared at the ripe piece of fruit in my hands, couldn't even believe that it really was meant for me.  
„Are you not hungry?“, he asked.  
„I am.“ I replied and hastily ate it.

In the following days I had to help him prepare a number of different rituals and was given food every evening, and he talked to me in a friendly manner - sometimes he even pet me. I took confidence and tried to do everything he demanded of me perfectly. I was happy. I knew, after all, that nobody needed slave boys – and if he gave me something to eat anyway, then it was certainly because he loved me. He praised me often.

During the rituals, I had to retreat to my tent. Slaves weren't allowed to watch rituals, as they are impure.

One day, I again was preparing a ritual. This time, my master ordered me to cleanse myself and to stay during the rite.  
„What will be sacrificed this time?“, I asked.

There was a sacrifice in every ritual – sometimes a small animal, or if it was something more important, a great beast. I would have to ritually clean the sacrifice, as well.  
„Just you wait. You'll understand it.“  
During the ritual I had to assist the shaman, recite sentences I had memorised earlier, ignite the fire – then the shaman asked me if I loved him.  
„Yes“, I answered.  
„Are you willing to give your life for me, if necessary?“, he asked.  
„Yes“, I answered.  
„Kneel down before me.“  
I obeyed him. He grabbed my neck and pressed my head to the floor. Then he stabbed into my back, where the heart sits.

Only then I understood that there is something you need slave boys for, after all. I desperately balked against his hard grip which held me in a cowering position. Every breath I took produced a stabbing pain, bloody froth came from my mouth and hindered my breathing. In the end, I gave up the fight, calmed and waited for death. The shaman let go of me and continued the ritual as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. I heard how after the ritual had ended, the shaman told the king that he surely would receive the much awaited son within the next year, now that the sacrifice had been made. I still heard them leave, then I lost consciousness.

When I woke, the sun stood high in the sky. I still felt a stabbing pain in my lungs with every breath of air. In front of my mouth, in the sand I saw a red spot of dried blood. But strangely enough I was still alive, and I was thirsty.

I stood. For a short moment my vision turned black, until it cleared. Then I slowly walked to the watering place and drank, until my thirst was quenched. The camp was long gone. The tracks of the caravan were clearly visible. I contemplated following them, but came to the conclusion that that was a foolish idea – when he noticed that I was still alive, the shaman would surely kill me for good.


	3. Eunuchs are valuable

And so I went into the opposite direction, back to the city we had last passed. I needed almost a week for that. I walked up to the first houses I saw and asked the people that stood before them, if they had something to eat for me.

They eyed me, considered my naked figure and laughed. Then a boy took me by the arm, led me to a garden and explained to me how to pluck weeds. Once I was done, so he told me, I would be fed. I ate some of the weeds and caterpillars I was supposed to pick off of the vegetables.

I had to work the entire day in the garden. In the evening, I was allowed to eat with the family. They ate fruit and vegetables, I only received a small piece of bread. It was more than I had ever gotten before. For half a year, I worked on the fields of the farmers family and considered myself lucky to be allowed to eat until I was full every evening, and to only be beaten rarely. I grew very quickly during this time.

One day, the boys of the family walked up to me and wanted to tie me up. I fought back, but they beat me unconscious. I had thought that since they had fed me, I wasn't a slave boy any more as slave boys never get any food.

When I came to, I laid tied up on top of the carriage that the father of the family had always used to transport his wares to the market. I rose to my knees and looked around. I didn't speak to the father, as I now knew he wanted to sell me, like my tribe had sold the older slave boys. I was sad, because I truly had thought he had given me to eat because he liked me. I longed for my mother, who was the only one to truly love me.

On the market, a scrawny man bought up the slave boys. He chained us all together and we had to walk beside his horse. Apart from me, there were about twenty farmer boys who still had their testicles and ten half-starved slave boys from the tribes, that like me had been castrated as infants. Us eunuchs were fed, the others were left to go hungry by the master. We were more valuable than the other boys.

Eventually, we came into a city. I awed at the huge houses, some of which had four stories, the paved roads, the colourful clothes of the cities' inhabitants. We were lead into one of the homesteads. Four tall buildings surrounded a square, in its centre standing a private well. We were lead into the building in the back and had to wash ourselves with cold water.

Then, a slave came – a eunuch just like us – whose appereance startled me at first. The left side of his head was barely recognizable as human any more, eye and ear where missing completely, in some places, the naked bone showed through, apart from that everything was covered in bulging scars.

First he pierced our earlobes and fed rings through the holes. The farmer boys cried when he did that, us boys from the tribes endured it silently. I was the tallest and thus the last to be done. He held me so firmly that it had hurt, but afterwards petted my hair soothingly. I eyed the healthy side of his face. He looked sad. The farmer boys were still crying. I found that to be silly, because it wasn't half as bad as the strikes from the whip we constantly received. Then he lead me around the corner, to a fire.  
“Kneel down”, he ordered.

I obeyed and looked at him questioningly.  
“You need to be very brave now. Take this stick into your mouth, bite on it as hard as you can and keep still, otherwise it will be even worse.”  
I took the stick into my mouth, then he grabbed the nape of my neck and pressed my head between my knees and to the floor. I suddenly got scared and tensed up. I had the fire of the shaman in front of my eyes again, as he had stabbed me in the back with the knife.  
“Easy. Calm down. It does hurt, but it isn't really bad.”  
I relaxed my muscles, then another man knelt down next to me, pressed something glowing hot into my shoulder and I wanted to scream from the pain, I burned that much. They held me in that position for a few seconds, then the branding iron was pulled away and he let go of me.  
“That's it, boy. Now you've gotten past it.”  
I stood up, dazed.  
“I know, it hurts. See, I'm wearing a brand as well. In a few days, the burning will stop. You can endure it, right?”  
I stared at him, confused. Never before had anybody cared if I could endure something or not.

One after the other, they brought the other boys for the branding. The bigger ones already had, by then, regained their composure when he brought them back, and silently went back to cower in their spot. Us boys from the tribes had been beaten so many times throughout our lives, that we took it as a matter of course to be beaten or otherwise hurt again and again, and without any special rhyme or reason.

The smaller ones cried for longer. The one with the scarred face carried them back in his arms and tried to comfort them. He wasn't very successful, of course, as such a branding really does hurt a whole damn lot. But he at least tried, and petted them. My mother had always just said that it was my own fault if someone beat me. Suddenly I knew that I liked the one with the scarred face.

Afterwards he lead the farmer boys away individually – they screamed and cried more than we did – and he didn't bring them back to us.  
“What is being done to them?”, I asked.  
“They will be castrated. Be glad that you've already had it over with. Half of them will die before three days have passed”, he answered friendly and then rested his hand on my shoulder.

That, I could imagine. A few times I had seen how infants were castrated. They always screamed for days afterwards and most of them had died. On the other hand, I wasn't surprised in the least. All slave boys were castrated, after all, as I had always known. After all nobody needed slave boys and it didn't matter to them if one died. With the farmer boys, they probably hadn't gotten to it yet as they hadn't been slaves for long.  
“What happened to your face?”, I asked.  
“An accident. When I was branded, I fell into the fire and before they could to save me half of my face was already burnt to a cinder. I wasn't worth much any more afterwards. That's why the master kept me, so I may help him with the work around here” he answered me kindly.

Gently I felt over his charred skin and said,  
“That must have hurt a lot.”  
Tears formed in his eye, he swallowed several times. I already thought I had said something wrong, then he quietly replied  
“I wanted to die.”  
I continued to stroke the scarred side of his face.  
“Why?”  
“Because of the pain. And because it meant that I had to stay here, where they kill all these children. And because nobody likes me.”  
He cried.  
“I like you.”  
“But I'm ugly!”  
“I like you. You're a good person.”  
Soon afterwards he went away so that we could sleep.


	4. A useless slave

On the next day, the scarred one brought us to the market where we were to be sold. He told me that he envied me because I didn't have to stay with the slave merchant, and that his name was Kanard.

I sat down on the floor, laid my arms around my knees and closed my eyes.  
“Stand up”; the scarred one ordered.  
I looked at him, confused.  
The customers have to be able to see you properly”, he explained.

I nodded, stood up and gazed at the people around me. Most of them were, like me, tethered together by hip-high chains and stood about, naked. Only a few people wandered around between the rows and gazed at the slaves, that like me were for sale. From time to time one of them stepped up to one of the slaves, felt his muscles or ordered him to turn around. The slaves obeyed – but many of them looked furious, then. I didn't understand their anger, as I had never known anything but slavery.

A palanquin was being carried trough the rows. I curiously watched the men that carried it and marched in lock-step and the armed bodyguard who accompanied the palanquin, and marvelled at the bright colours of the fabric.

The palanquin came to a stop before me.   
“What about that one?”, said the woman and pointed at me.  
The bodyguard walked up to me, looked me in the eyes, smiled and said:  
“You're strong, aren't you?”  
“Yes”, I answered, even though I wasn't really convinced of that.  
“Well, then show me how strong you are.”

He took my hand and ordered me to push it to the side. I strained myself, but suddenly he changed his grip a little and my arm hurt so much that I almost fainted on the spot. I pulled my hand away and kicked after him. Then I startled. He would surely beat me now! He smiled, caught my leg before I could hit him and helped me back to my feet.  
“Well done”, he praised me. “You've got spirit. Don't you want to be a bodyguard, like me?”  
I looked at him for a short moment, examining – he seemed to be friendly and I liked that I was allowed to defend myself if somebody was mean to me – and answered  
“Yes”.  
“Good.” he answered and then, addressing his mistress “That one's all right.”

She nodded, the bodyguard waved at the scarred one and quickly negotiated my price. Once they had come to a conclusion, the scarred one squeezed my arm and whispered into my ear  
“Good luck.”  
I didn't know how to react, as nobody had ever wished me anything good.

Then the bodyguard gave me a loincloth so that I didn't have to walk around naked and asked the mistress:  
“Can we go home now, or did you plan on doing anything else? Surely the boy must be hungry, as the slave merchants skimp on every meal they think the customer won't notice”.  
“No, that was everything for today.”

I followed the palanquin through the maze of alleys of the city until we arrived at a big courtyard. When we stopped before the gate, it opened immediately and two armed men stepped outside, politely greeting the mistress. Then the palanquin was carried to the main building and the bodyguard led me to the stables and from there, up a small flight of stairs and into a small chamber where straw laid on the floor. An adolescent with a bandaged arm laid there. The bodyguard knelt next to him, stroked through his hair and caressed the pale face of the unconscious boy.

“Come with me”, he said to me and led me back to the courtyard.  
“What is with him?”, I asked as soon as we left the room.  
“He was injured by a knife, in battle”, the bodyguard explained.  
“Will he recover?”, I asked.  
“I don't know. It's looking bad”, he answered.

We entered the main building through a small side door and came into the kitchen.  
A plumpish woman looked up and asked  
“Greetings, Kevis! Is that your new apprentice?”  
“Yes”, the bodyguard answered.  
“What's your name, then?”, she asked me.  
“Kanto”, I answered.  
“Surely you must be hungry, sonny?”

Even tough I didn't dare to give an answer – of course I was hungry, I hadn't eaten for two days after all – she pressed a small loaf of bread into my hand. To make sure that nobody could take it away from me again, I ate it as fast as possible. A soon as it was gone, she gave me a second loaf of bread and when I had finished that, another. I almost didn't manage to get the third one down. Then she asked me if I wanted an apple as well. Of course I did! Who knew when somebody would give me food again! - As learned later, I would actually get as much food as I wanted, several times a day.

Whenever he found the time for it, the old bodyguard trained fighting with me. I soon had so many bruises that I wasn't so sure any more if he really was as nice, as he had seemed in the beginning.

When we looked after the injured one after our training two weeks later, the master entered the room together with the cook, who also cared for the injuries of the slaves. I looked up to him. The cook rolled the bandages up and away from the injured arm and inspected the wound. She shook her head, concerned.  
“How does it look?”, the master asked.  
“I have to take the arm off, or he'll die”, the cook explained.  
“Then the poor lad suffered through his pain for nothing”, the master replied, knelt down next to the injured one and cut his throat.

Appalled, I looked at Kevis, the bodyguard. He had turned very pale and his fists were closed so tightly that they had turned completely white.  
“You'll take away the corpse”, the master ordered at him and left the room.  
As soon as he was gone, Kevis covered his face with his hands, sank to his knees next to the dead one and cried uncontrollably. I felt very sorry for him, but didn't know what I could have said.

When we took away the body on the next day, I asked the bodyguard:  
“Will I be injured, as well?”  
“That could happen”, Kevis answered.  
“And will he cut my throat then, too?”  
“That depends. If it heals, and you can still fight afterwards, then no. When I was young, I got injured a few times, too.”  
He laid his arm around my shoulders.  
“You have to practise fighting during every free minute, so that nothing like this will ever happen to you.”, he went on.  
That – so I though – I surely would do. After all, I didn't want someone to cut my throat because he had no use of me any more. And then I realized that Kevin did like me. That's why he had practised with me so much that everything hurt.  
“You know, slaves have to stick together. If you ever have any problem that you cannot solve alone, then you have to tell me, do you understand?”  
Yes, I thought, he really does like me.

The rich people burn their dead in the city, but nobody would have used that much firewood to get rid of a slave. To curb the danger of an epidemic, it was therefore required to bring all the corpses that weren't being burned to the cemetery behind the city, where they were thrown to scavenging animals. That's where we brought him.

At the cemetery gate stood two armed guards and greeted Kevis, as if they had known each other for a long time.  
“Did he die, after all?”, the older one of the two asked.  
“The master cut his throat after it became clear that his arm would have had to be taken off for him to survive.”  
Kevis said these words unusually tonelessly and he again had balled his fists and tried frantically not to cry. Then he asked, in a strangely childlike voice:  
“Do you think I'm a bad teacher?”  
“I think we all ask ourselves that when one of our students dies in battle, right?” the older one said sympathetically, and continued:  
“No, Kevis, Randi was very good for his age. One couldn't have taught him more in that short time frame. It was simply bad luck that you've already lost two students before they became adults.”  
Now he cried anyway. I snuggled up against him and caressed his hand. He pressed me up to himself.

Two slaves carried the dead Randi onto the cemetery, then the older guardsman gave us the receipt that confirmed that we really had delivered the body. Crestfallen, we returned to the city.


	5. Slaves are not capable of real friendship

Every day, I practised fighting with Kevis for hours. On the first days I was always completely spent afterwards. But with time, my body got used to the demands, and to the bruises that I received daily from the wooden practise swords became fewer.

Before I became a bodyguard, I would have never thought of protesting injustice. I hadn't had any ideas about morality, because nobody had ever had any consideration for me or had had any morality in mind when it came to what he did to me. In the tribe of my birth, I literally hadn't had any rights, not even a mouthful of food had been given to me by the masters. What I needed, my mother had secretly slipped me or I stole it – and I still had been so malnourished that my development had lagged several years behind. In turn, I was given more work than I could perform and if someone had murdered me, nobody would have cared. On the other side, I hadn't possessed the power to truly hurt another person.

When Kevin taught me, that changed. He had a very clear picture of what a bodyguard was allowed to do with weaker people, and what not. I wasn't even allowed to threaten someone with my weapon in jest, was never allowed to take something away that belonged to somebody else, and similar things. If necessary, he enforced these rules through beatings – but if I really thought about it, I even found them to be good – and after all, I knew that he liked me and would take my side whenever I needed help.

Whenever the mistress wanted to go into the city, we guarded her palanquin. A few times we had to chase away street boys who wanted to steal something from it. Kevin always hit them on their backs with the flat side of his blade then, something they would remember, but he let them run. I had to do the same. Had I hurt them, I would have gotten into serious trouble with him as soon as we were alone. He didn't want children to have their hands hacked off for theft. Of course he never spelled it out to the mistress that he let them run on purpose, but I think most bodyguards did it, that's why it was seen as normal that little boys and girls where never truly caught.

Every now and again in the mid-mornings, I was tasked with getting some small trivial knick-knacks from the market. And every time, I went to the slave market to visit my friend with the burnt face and we exchanged some words. The first time, we talked for close to an hour as he was so happy to see me and just hadn't believed that I really did like him. Afterwards, Kevin took me aside and explained:  
“You may visit your friend here, and as long as you don't waste too much time nobody will really care, since the master won't notice. But if you stay away again for as long as you did today, the master will notice and have you whipped for your negligence, and then you'll never get to see him again.”  
After that, I always kept our chats short.

During our meals I got to know Gina, the cooks daughter. The girl had a crippled hand and she became my best friend. We always sat together during mealtime, and the few free minutes we had in the day, we spent together. I really was in love with her, even if the thought of having children of my own was - due to my age - too far away to cause me any pain, yet.

When I was twelve years old and she was ten, the master was of the opinion that she was old enough now and sold her, without telling anybody to whom. I had cried all night long because I feared that I would never see her again, and because I worried about who had bought her. Crippled slaves often ended up in places that no human being with even a bit of sanity would want to live in. Like the slaves that carried the corpses at the cemetery, that more often than not got sick quickly and then died of pestilence.

On the next day, while I was shopping, I asked everyone I knew about Gina. It took me almost an hour until somebody told me that she had been sold to the herb-wife. Then I went to the farmer's market, looked for the booth and asked for Gina. The old, withered farmer's wife called for my friend. I greeted her and asked her if she was okay. What she told me was relieving: Her mistress was treating her like a daughter and she was content with her work.

When I came home, the guard immediately sent me to the master. Obediently, I went to the main building.  
“Where have you been?”, he asked angrily.  
“I had been searching for Gina”, I answered.  
“Are you crazy? When I sent you shopping, you are to go there straight away, buy what you've been told and come back immediately, is that clear!”  
“Gina is my friend and I didn't even know if she was still alive!”, I protested.  
“Quit lying! Slaves have no friends. They are not capably of real friendship and you know that. Besides, you should be grateful for being treated as well as you are, here. Not everybody is.”  
I clenched my fists in anger at that absurd claim, but when the master ordered his bodyguard to assemble the slaves and to lead me to the courtyard, in order to have me whipped, I followed wordlessly, bared my back obediently and tried my best to show no pain as I was whipped to unconsciousness.

The next day, I was too ill to get up. Kevis came to look after me several times. In the evening, he sat next to me in my cot and asked:  
“It seems strange to me that the master had you punished for your trip. He doesn't do things like that, normally. What have you done to anger him so?”  
“He said that slaves don't know what friendship is”, I replied indignantly.  
“And then you spoke your mind?”  
“Yes.”  
Kevis smiled, amused.  
“Do you know who actually doesn't know what friendship is?”   
“Kanard has no friends besides me”, I said, thinking about the scarred slave who was my friend.  
“He knows very well what friendship is”, Kevis explained to me. “Our master actually doesn't know it. When you observe how he and his buddies treat each other, you'll notice with how much contempt they immediately abandon anyone who has lost his money, or is too difficult. They do nothing for each other that doesn't benefit themselves.”

That was a surprising thought.

“Because if the master knew what friendship and love really are, it would have been glaringly obvious to him that you are in love with Gina, that you are friends with the scarred Kanard, and that I love you as if you were the son I never got to have, because I was castrated as a small child.”

Kevis interrupted himself. I noticed by his expression that he was thinking about something very sad. I squeezed his hand. He smiled at me, but still seemed to be so sad and far away. Then he pulled himself together and went on:  
“And because he doesn't know what friendship is, he will never have sympathy for you doing something out of friendship, or love. So never argue with him again about the topic. It's no use. You'll only be punished again and again, and for nothing. And besides, it isn't even that important what he thinks. He will cause you some grief for a few weeks, and then he will calm and you can visit your friends again, without him noticing.”  
Kevis stayed there, sitting next to me, until I had fallen asleep.

As soon as I was more or less on my feet again and sent back to run some errands, I visited my friends even though beforehand Kevis had urgently advised me not to do it.

In the evening I was ordered to go to the master again, who had me whipped until I lost consciousness once more, because somebody had reported me being disobedient to him.

After that, I didn't dare to take the detour to the herb-wife's booth anymore – but the slave market was directly on my way and I exchanged a few words with my friend.

This time again the master called for me:  
“You spoke to another slave on your way again.”  
“But he is my friend – I can't just go pass by him without a word!”, I protested.

Again, the master had me whipped until I was unconscious and this time I was ill for several weeks until I could stand up on my own again – and I was getting scared. Even if it had never happened with my master, I still had heard enough stories about slaves being whipped to death.

For months, I only exchanged the most necessary words during my errand runs, until I felt brave enough to visit my friends again.

At first, I visited the booth of the herb-wife and asked for Gina. She greeted my a lot more reserved than she had before.  
“What's going on?”, I asked nervously.  
“I need to tell you something...” she swallowed and paused, then she pulled herself together and continued. “I have found the man that I want to marry.”  
“But...”, I protested.  
“You know, I want children and I can't have any with you.”, she explained.

I burst into tears.

I went to Kanard to tell him what had happened. He listened to me, took me consolingly into his arms and caressed me, until I had more or less regained my composture. Then he said:  
“You know, I'm jealous of you. I've never had a girlfriend.”  
Afterwards, I had to hurry to get home in time.

I had feared to be called before the master again, and was anxiously expecting it for the entire evening before I feel asleep, exhausted. Only on the next morning I was sure that I had not been caught.


	6. The mistress' bed

I was seventeen years old. One time, when the master was out of house, the mistress had me called to her room. I obeyed and saw, astonished, that she was laying in her bed.  
“Come to me, then we can have a little fun together.”, she prompted me.  
“The master won't be okay with that at all”, I punted.  
“He doesn't need to know”, she said.

Sure – and if he does find out, I'll be in trouble. I thought.

Besides, that wasn't my idea of pleasure. With Gina, whom I loved – yeah, I would have liked that, but the mistress, who only cared about my body anyway, could hang. I hesitated, as I was afraid that she would be insulted, but then said:  
“I really would rather not do that.”  
“If you must insist, I could of course have you whipped instead. I enjoy that almost just as much.”  
I had heard about people who really did enjoy whipping their slaves before, but as far as I knew the mistress wasn't one of them. But instead she was, if you rejected her intimacies, fast to come up with a hard punishment. One boy she even had stabbed with a knife because he didn't want to come to bed with her. So I took her thread seriously – and unfortunately she had enough time, during which she wasn't controlled by the master, to kill me through such punishments if I were not to yield. Still, I tried:  
“Mistress, please – the master will kill me if he finds out!”, I begged.  
“Don't act coy. Come to bed.”  
So I undressed and obeyed.

In the evening, I told Kevis what had happened.  
“Oh my god!”, he exclaimed “If the master finds out, he'll kill you... or he'll come up with something that'll make you wish you afterwards that he'd killed you.”  
I nodded glumly.  
“But what am I supposed to do now? I mean, if I don't do it, she'll kill me.”, I asked.  
“Or if you tell the master that she demanded it of you. I think you can do nothing, except to obey her. And the prospect of hiding this in the long term is near impossible. I'll do my best to warn you early enough every time the master comes back”  
I nodded again. So he couldn't think of an expedient, either. That was about what I had expected.

The mistress called me to bed several times again. Often, we had tea together before and she offered me cake and spoke very affectionately to me. Obviously she wanted to make herself believe that I was her great love. I played this game with her obediently, but never forgot what threat she had used to force it onto me. Had she really loved me, she wouldn't have been so unconcerned about the fact that her intimacies brought me in mortal danger.

Since it went well enough for almost two years, the mistress became more careless with every day and began talking openly to the other slaves about it. I had asked her again and again to keep our relationship a secret as much as that was possible, but that didn't influence her even a bit.

One day when the master supposedly was away again and I was in bed with the mistress, the door had opened and the master together with his bodyguards stepped in. I stayed put and looked at her, horrified – it wasn't like I could do anything anymore.  
“What are you doing here?”, the master asked.  
“The mistress ordered me to bed”, I answered.  
“And that I wouldn't agree to that didn't come to your mind?”  
“It did, master – but you weren't there, so I couldn't ask you for help when she ordered me.”  
As far as I had known, the master hadn't seriously punished his wife when she had murdered the boy back then.  
“Don't come to me with such excuses. Get up and put this on”, he ordered me and threw a loincloth in my direction, then he turned toward his bodyguards: “You know what you have to do.”  
I did as I was ordered and followed the bodyguards without resistance into the room in the cellar where they brought me. A man was waiting for me there, and I knew that he often castrated people and horses.  
“Lay down there!”  
Before I had a chance to obey him, the four bodyguards of the master had dragged me towards the bench,forced me to lay on my back and grabbed my limbs. Since resistance obviously was futile, I tried to relax. The man sat down on my stomach, reached for my penis and cut it off. The pain didn't come immediately, but only when he poured hot oil over it to stop the bleeding.  
“On the chair.”  
I was dragged there as well, before I in any way could react. Then, without any prior warning he pulled my head backwards, grabbed my tongue with a hook and cut it out. I whimpered and thought :  
“Why aren't you just killing me?”  
When they let go of me, I fell to the floor and convulsed in pain.  
“Stand up and come with me.”  
I didn't react. They could do what they wanted. Nothing mattered anyway. The bodyguards grabbed me by the arms, dragged me into a small chamber, let me fall down and locked the door behind me. I stayed there and quietly cried.

Later I thought about the palanquin bearers of the mistress, who had had their tongue cut out aswell and I realized that they were met with less interest than an animal. Almost daily I had worked beside them and still, I had never acknowledged them as human. And I had never realized what I had done. Kevis was the same way, even though he always was very careful not to overlook anybody who didn't have the resources to assert their needs on his own. That was why I feared to never be able to make friends ever again, if I wasn't able to talk – and what is the point of living without friendship?

I didn't know how long I had stayed in the room. It had to have been several days, but I only laid curled up on the straw, was in incredibly pain and wished I was dead.


	7. After a few bites the pain took over and I refused to continue eating

Eventually one of the masters' men came, held a jug of water toward me and ordered me to drink. When I only stared at him wordlessly, he hit me once with his switch. I thought to myself that in the end, it didn't matter if I drank something or not and obeyed. Afterwards he led me into another room in which Koris, the leader of the local leaders' guard, waited.

Both men took a short look at me and quickly negotiated the price, then Koris turned to me:  
“Kanto, Kevis told me what happened and I'm incredibly sorry for you.”  
He looked at me expectantly, until I gave a nod to show that I had understood.  
“My master has ordered to buy mute eunuchs as bodyguards for his new wife. I don't think that's very reasonable, because I believe it to be important to be able to talk with my subordinates, so that I can be told in time if there are any problems, but in the end it's the master's choice and that's why I thought of you, because I know that I can rely on you.”, he explained to me.

I nodded.  
“But first I have to make sure that you'll stay alive. Piss there.”  
He pointed to a gutter in the floor. I obeyed, even though, because of the wound that hadn't yet healed completely, it had burned a lot. Now I also understood why I was made to drink before. It was proof that I would survive. For men, there are two forms of castration: The tribes only remove the testicles, while in the cities the penis is cut off as well. The latter is far more dangerous than the former,as it often happens that the urethra grows shut and if that happens, the slave in question will die of inner poisoning. Because you can sell such eunuchs for double the price than those that only had their testicles removed, the traders make a substantial amount of money through such a castration.

I walked next to Koris through the city, to the palace. The fact that he would be my overseer, and the way he had spoken to me, gave me, for the first time since I had been caught in the mistress' bed, something like hope. The sun had just risen.

Arrived in the palace, Koris had ordered me to wash myself. That wasn't a pleaant experience, because the wound where the penis had been wasn't nearly healed yet. On the other hand it really was necessary to wash off the dried blood and the grime from the dungeon.

I got handed my uniform. Then we went to the kitchen to have breakfast – after the first bite I, startled by the pain, let go of my bread and held my hands to my throat. I seriously thought if it wouldn't be better to wait with the eating until the place where my tongue had been was healed at least somewhat. The chewing motion and the food on the still raw wound caused unbelievable pain.  
“Pain?”  
Koris touched me on the shoulder and look at me, pitiful. I nodded.  
“It is important that you eat anyway. It's been a week since the operation and if you wait much longer with your first meal, the hunger will weaken you too much.”, he explained to me.

A week? The time in the dark cell had seemed endless to me, but I still had assumed that it only had been a few days, because the pain hadn't lessened.

Doubtingly I looked at the bread. I prepared for the pain, gathered some courage and took a bite. This time it was smaller and held my head sideways, so that the bread didn't fall onto the open spot again, where my tongue had been. Since it was missing, I also couldn't push the bread between my teeth any more and it just laid where it fell. After a few bites the pain took over and I refused to continue eating.


	8. Dinia or The dangers of marriage

Eventually we went to the office of Koris, where another mute eunuch was already waiting for us. I greeted him with a nod and a smile. He reciprocated the greeting and seemed unsure afterwards.  
“Kanto, this is Zadek – is that your real name?” questioningly, Koris looked at the other mute.

He shook his head and made a sad face.  
“But that is the name that was told to me – and I really don't know who we could ask about your real name. Is it okay if we keep it at Zadek for a while?”  
The mute nodded, but showed that he wasn't really happy.  
“Zadek, this is Kanto. You two will be working together as the bodyguards of Dinia, the new wife of the master. Kanto will be taking the mid-morning shift now, since he knows me already and is more or less aware about what I expect from him. Zadek, I will instruct you about your tasks in detail in a moment and show you around the house, so that you can take Kanto's place in the afternoon. Come with me.”  
We followed Koris through the house that I didn't yet know, into the master's bedroom. There, Koris introduced me to the fourteen year old girl that was the new wife of my new master and left me alone with her.

The girl didn't answer to the introduction, but pulled the blanket over her head until Koris was gone again. I sat down on the floor next to the bed and waited. After a while she pulled the blanket back down again and looked at me. I smiled at her.  
“Go away! I don't want anything to do with any of you!”, she snapped at me.

I couldn't do that, of course. As a bodyguard I had the standing order to always stay at her side, even if she herself didn't want it, until my relay came. So I just lowered my gaze and made a sad face.  
“I HATE all of you. I want back home to my mama and... and...”  
She began weeping bitterly. Gingerly I extended my hand and stroked her hair, as if she still was a small child. What had happened to her tonight, that she was crying like this? I tried to calm her by humming quietly – and wished I could speak to ask her what was going on.

Luckily she began speaking on her own, about how the master had her last night – their wedding night – raped, and how much it had hurt. She had begged him to stop, but he had only hit her even more. I had heard that that it was supposed to hurt a bit during the first time, for the woman – but this didn't sound right. This had to be something serious. I continued stroking the girls hair and asked myself how I could make Koris realize – it was simply much too complicated to by told with hands and feet.  
“I'm bringing your breakfast, mistress.”  
We both looked up startled and saw the maybe ten year old girl that had come, bearing a meal tray. The mistress started talking and asked:  
“Thank you... - What is your name?”  
“Tara.”  
“Thank you, Tara. You can put in on the night stand. And now leave us alone, please.”  
“Yes, mistress. Of course, mistress.”  
The little girl put the tray down, dropped a curtsey and left. She really was cute. I looked after the child smiling, then went back to being serious and turned to the young mistress and pointed prompting at the tray with the breakfast.   
“I'm not hungry”  
Her voice sounded the way I had felt in those last few days: As if she didn't care at all whether she lived or died. But I cared.

I pulled the blanket down and froze. When my previous mistress had had her period, I had sometimes seen a blood stain on the sheets – but never something like this. It looked as if somebody had slaughtered a pig in the bed. She needed a doctor – and I didn't even know where to find one.

Now, she'd begun crying again. I held her in my arms and stroked her soothingly. “It has stopped bleeding now, but next time I'm sure he'll kill me!”, she said strangely objectively.

Had I still had my tongue, I still would have had no idea what to say. But it still was probably a good thing for her, if she would eat something. So I teased her with the food until she was laughing again and had eaten a good amount.

A girl cleaned the night stand afterwards, changed the sheets and carried the cloths away o be washed.

Then it was noon already and Koris came with Zadek, the other mute eunuch, who was to relay me. Dinia didn't want me to go. She clung to me and begged me to stay.  
“Dinia, Kanto can't be with you all the time. He has to eat, and then go to train, so that he can, if necessary, protect you. So let him go already.”, Koris said to her.  
“But I want Kanto to stay here.”, the young woman demanded.  
“Kanto, come!”, Koris ordered me, and when he saw me hesitating he added a sharp “That's an order.”  
Still hesitating, I freed myself from her desperate hug and stood. If there was anything at all that I could do for Dinia, it surely wasn't sitting beside her all day. There had to be some way I could tell Koris that the master had seriously hurt the girl during sex. But even if I were to succeed, it of course still wasn't certain that there was any way at all to convince the master that he had to treat his wife differently.


	9. Speechlessness

I thought to myself that maybe it'd help you, if you didn't have to chew your food. So I asked the cook to make you some soup.”, Koris said to me.

I nodded and smiled, moved by how much he concerned himself with my problems. It actually only went marginally better with the soup, but at least it more or less filled me before the pain had grown so much that I couldn't dare myself any more to take another spoonful. When I was done, Koris handed my a cup with a strange smelling concoction. I looked at him questioningly.  
“This is from the midwife. She said that it would numb the pain and at the same time keeps the wound from getting infected. You should wash your mouth with it and gargle, but don't swallow it down – it isn't particularly healthy.”, he explained to me.

The midwife – Dinia needed a midwife, to care for her inner wounds – but how would I be able to explain THAT? I couldn't think of a way. In the end, I nodded and did as I was told. The stuff tasted awful, but did actually numb the pain a bit.  
“And – Everything all right?”, he asked when I was done.

I determinedly shook my head.  
“Still in pain?”  
I lifted a hand, shook my hand and showed through my facial expression that I couldn't suitably answer that question.  
“Okay – those are actually two questions – but I'm assuming you're still in pain.”  
I confirmed that with a nod.  
“But the actual problem is something else.”  
Again I nodded.  
“Did she do something to you?”  
I shook my head.  
“Did you vex somebody?”  
I shook my head again.  
“Well, what's going on then?”, he snapped at me.

I made a face. That was a question that I truly could not answer – and it was so important that he'd get to know it. He took a deep breath and pulled himself together.  
“I'm sorry Kanto, it's not your fault. But during such conversations I just want to strangle these brainless idiots who think it's a good idea to rip out a slave's tongue, just so that he can't talk about their petty little secrets...”  
Me too.  
“And – I'm sorry, I really have no idea what else I could ask you. I will think about it and hope that I'll guess correctly about where the problem lies here, but for now it's time to train.”  
I nodded sadly – but I also couldn't think of any way to make him understand that it wasn't me, but Dinia who had a problem. So it probably was the most reasonable thing to go train.

I was alarmed when I realized how bad my form was, but Koris praised me a lot anyway. How he hadn't even known that I was such a good fighter, but how he probably should have guessed it, since he knew what a great teacher Kevis was. I was happy that he praised not only me, but Kevis as well.

After eight hours of training to fight I felt shivery and weak and actually wanted to go bad immediately after washing myself, but Koris insisted on me to eat dinner first. Since he was essentially right, I obeyed, even though it was a terrible torture again.

Before I was done, Kevis came to visit. He looked as if he hadn't slept all week – which was possible, when I thought about how it had been back when the master had cut his previous student, Randi's, throat. For several nights, he had only cried and when he had managed to fall asleep, his nightmares had woken him up again. Neither did I want to be pitied, nor did I want him to give himself the fault for something he couldn't have prevented. So I smiled at him, stood up, took his hand, squeezed it and invited him with a movement of my arm to come and sit beside me. Then I smiled at him, amicably.  
“When I realized that they had lured me away on purpose, so that the master could sneak around me unnoticed and catch you red-handed – and they told me that they had hacked off you tongue and your penis, I thought – now they did something to you that made you wish you'd rather have died...”  
I nodded seriously. For a time, I really had wished that.  
“You must hate me, for letting you down like that.” he said darkly.

I took his hand, stroked it, shook my head “no” and smiled at him. I hadn't thought about how they had gone around him. I was too busy wrangling with my fate for that. But it had been clear from the beginning that it had to come out eventually. Especially when you thought about how careless the mistress had been. Besides, I was simply that Kevis had come to visit me and if I wanted him to do it again, I had to show him that he was welcome to me. On the other hand, I did find it strange that he was the one crying now when I was the one with the problem.

And by the way, he told me something that made me happy: My former master had bought Kanard, the scarred slave from the slaver as a bodyguard. With that, Kanards biggest dream had come true.

Since Kevis had come here without explicit permission from his master, he had to leave soon. Afterwards Koris had me called to his office and asked:  
“The young mistress has complained bitterly about Zadek. Do you think he did something to her?”  
I remembered how, at first, she had cursed at me and shook my head determinedly.  
“She is simply a spoiled brat”, he murmured.

I shook my head. She feared for her life – and that had made her reactions understandable, even if they did not help in the least to solve her problems. On the contrary. She should have told Koris about it, instead of angering him by insulting his men.  
“But she cussed you out at first, when she saw you, and now she's insulting Zadek completely unfoundedly.”, he tried to make clear to me.

I showed through my expression that that was one of the questions again, that were to complicated, to answer them without words. The problem probably WAS that she was a spoiled child, I pondered. It probably would have been better for her, had she been a slave girl. On the one hand, it would have made Koris easily understand how helpless and exposed she had to feel, on the other hand it would make her understand in what kind of precarious situation she was bringing Zadek. Dinia had been friendly to the slave girl, after all – maybe she viewed all armed men as a threat and as accomplices, without being aware of how unstable the position of a bodyguard was. Especially since Zadek couldn't defend himself against her accusations, because he was mute.

Koris observed, while these things went through my head, my face attentively.  
“You like her.”, he suddenly realized.

I nodded.  
“But you have to see how she's behaving absolutely terribly.”  
Again I nodded.  
“She is a spoiled brag.”  
This time I nodded, but made clear through my expression and body language that something essential was left out here. Koris observed me thoughtfully – finally, he shook his head slightly and said:  
“I wish I could grasp what is going on here.”  
I nodded.  
“Tomorrow morning I will show you everything, then you will take the afternoon shift with the mistress.”, he stated and sent me to bed.

Koris lead me trough the entire house on the next mid-morning, showed me every room and introduced me to all the inhabitants. I carefully remembered where I could find the mid-wife.

As soon as it had taken my shift with Dinia in the afternoon and she had finished her lunch, I waved at her to follow me. I had to do it three times until eventually, she followed me to the mid-wives room.  
“Can I help you in any way, mistress?”, the mid-wife asked Dinia.  
“I don't know, Kanto wanted me to come here”, she answered.  
“Should I maybe examine her?”, the mid-wife asked me.

I nodded determinedly.  
Than you have to lift your robes down there and lay here on the table.”, the mid-wife instructed her and waved for me to go outside. I wanted to go obediently, but Dinia protested:  
“No, Kanto is to stay here. I don't want him to leave me alone.”  
“I'm not hurting you, girl. I'm only going to take a look and see if everything is okay.”, the mid-wife tried to calm Dinia.  
“Kanto is to stay here!”, she insisted on her demand.

I knelt next to her and held her hand, while the mid-wife looked at the vagina. She only had a quick look and took a sharp breath. I looked at her, alarmed.  
“This wretched sadist!”  
I tried to make clear to the mid-wife that I wanted to know, how bad it actually was. And that really was almost impossible without words. She still seemed to understand, took me aside and whispered so quiet that Dinia couldn't hear, that she wasn't allowed to sleep with a man for the next few weeks, because else she was in danger of bleeding to death.  
I nodded seriously – that was pretty much what I had expected.

In the evening when the night guard had relayed me, I immediately went to Koris and led him to the mid-wife.  
“What do you want here?”, the mid-wife asked him.  
“Kanto lead me here. I think he wants you to tell me something.”  
I nodded firmly. Subsequently, the mid-wife told him that the master had life-threatingly abused the young mistress.  
“Are you serious? I simply cannot believe that he would do something like that.”, Koris asked her incredulously.  
“I'm telling you!”, the mid-wife answered.  
“He simply couldn't have wanted that. Kanto, do you think so as well – and was that the problem that you wanted to show me all this time?”  
I firmly nodded at both of these questions.  
“I will resolve this with the master. I'll fo and search for him immediately.”, promised Koris.

I nodded and went into the bedroom of the mistress, because the mid-wife had said that Dinia could die if the master were to sleep with her again, before the wounds had healed.


	10. The punishment for dissent

Zadek wondered when I came. Like Dinia, he was happy to see me and I greeted them both with a smile and a nod. Then I sat down next to Dinia and took her hand.

I didn't have to wait for long until the master came in and ordered his wife to come to bed with him.  
“No, please no again...”, she begged.  
“Come, don't play coy. You'll learn to enjoy it”, he said and wanted to grab her by the arm.

I positioned myself between the two.  
“Make yourself scarce! That is my wife!”, he ordered me, indignant by my interference.

I shook my head slightly. He slapped my face, hard. Automatically, my hand twitched towards my sword and it took all of my self-restraint not to pull it from its sheath.  
“What do you want from me? Should I kill you, or why are you standing in my way?”, he yelled at me.

I again shook my head and showed through my expression and my stance, how helpless I felz, because I couldn't speak – but I didn't budge even one centimetre and looked him in the eyes. The master unsheathed his sword, took a swing, aimed for my neck but stopped his movement in the last second. Again I had to violently suppress my desire to unsheath my own weapon to block the movement. As a trained fighter, I most likely would have won in a fight against my master, but afterwards I would have been – understandably – executed. To trust that he wouldn't hit me and to simply stand still was considerably more difficult.

In that moment, the door behind me opened and Koris came in and said:  
“Master, I need to talk to you immediately. It is important.”  
I exhaled, relieved.  
“You shouldn't believe that your insolence will go unpunished, just because Koris wants to talk to me right now.”, the master snapped at me and ordered his bodyguards “Take him away!”  
His threat didn't change anything about my relief, of course. But even if, after Koris' explanation, he still would have been of the opinion that I'd earned a punishment, he still most probably wouldn't have had killed me.

The bodyguards hadn't brought me into a dungeon, but to my cot. When I showed them how much that puzzled me one of them explained:  
“That was the order of Koris. He seems to think that everything isn't nearly that bad.”  
I nodded and went to sleep, relieved.

On the next morning I was woken by Koris, who told me at breakfast:  
“Kanto, you've seriously impressed me. Firstly, because you even found a way at all to tell me that Dinia was in mortal danger. But even more because of how you protected her from the master. I definitely wouldn't have had the bravery to stand face to face against the master without drawing my weapon – and that was the only thing that could work there. But sadly I have some bad news. The master may have realized that, in the end, you did him a favour. But he still thinks that you need to be punished.”  
I nodded calmly. I had expected that. Koris lead me to the courtyard, where there other fighters of the house had arranged themselves in a double row. They held their wooden practise swords in their hands and looked at me expectantly. I had to take off my weapons and my clothes, they Koris explained to me:  
“You have to walk between both rows and will be battered until you have reached the other hand. So just keep going, no matter how hard they hit you. If you can't walk any more, you can crawl if you like – but don't, by any means, stop, do you understand?  
I nodded, looked at the row in front of me for a short moment and started walking determinedly. - Jogging seemed risky to me, because it would have made it easier to trip.

Some of them had hit very hard. Especially some blows to the head had made my vision turn black, but I somehow managed to stay on my feet, until one of them had hit me hard against the side of my right foot. I fell down and immediately tried to get back up again, only to instantly fall down again because my foot refused to obey. So I crawled on – and some of them had made a game out of hitting my arms away from under my body, so that I continued falling. More blows to my head made my eyes swell shut and dizzied me so much that soon, I didn't know which was the right direction any more. It went on for an eternity. Then, after another hit to the head my vision turned black and I thought to myself: _Couldn't do it after all_.

I awoke in an expensively furnished room and thought to myself that I was probably dead and in heaven now. Then I came to realize that I was still in pain, and had a black eye – and that had made it seem pretty probable to me that I was still alive, after all. I lifted my head and immediately knew that I was alive. In heaven there couldn't have been such headaches. Certainly not. I whimpered, then I heard footsteps. Dinia knelt next to me and gently swept my hair from my face. I smiled at her not because I felt like smiling – most certainly not – but because it was the only way I could have greeted her. Now I recognized the room, too. It was her room.

I lifted my arm to touch her hand, and this little movement lead to excruciating pain as well, where I wasn't sure if they came from my sore muscles or from the injuries. Probably both – in any case, the arm looked horrible. Black and blue, caked in dried blood and at least twice as thick as normally.  
“The mid-wife says that you need to drink a lot.”, Dinia explained to me and put a drinking straw into my mouth.

Obediently I had sucked the cooled liquid from the cup, even though the spot where my tongue had been still caused me immense pain. Afterwards I gave my best not to do any movements any more, because I was absolutely certain that I would otherwise only discover more body parts that hurt disgustingly. Sadly, those suspicions would prove themselves to be true in the following hours and days, because lying absolutely still was impossible, after all.

Even worse where the visits of the mid-wife. None of my wounds were deep, most of them just scrapes and superficial scratches. But since they covered my entire body, they were as a whole very dangerous and had to be kept meticulously clean. Every day, the mid-wife removed the bandages and washed every wound with boiled-out tisane. I tried my best to hold still, twisted and turned my arms and legs the way she wanted me to, and simply wished that I could've just died right then and there to escape the pain. But I didn't die.

If I really had wanted to commit suicide, there probably would've been an opportunity. But Dinia was there and held my hands, when I bit my lips until they bled to stop myself from crying out from the pain, while the mid-wife had washed my wounds. Dinia gave me water, or a thin soup, several times every day through a straw. She pushed the bed-pan under me when I had to relieve myself and sat next to my bed all day. At night, she slept in the same room as me and Zadek, her other mute bodyguard, sat next to me and held my hand. Three times a day Koris, my superior, visited me and looked after me.

I think that without their love and care, I would have simply died of despair. But like this, I slowly gathered my courage again and healed. And also, Koris had told me that the master felt very sorry about what he had done to Dinia and that in the future, he would listen to the mid-wife's advice. He would also agree to me continuing to be Dinia's bodyguard and, in the future, I would be allowed to choose if I rather wanted to sleep in her room, or in the bodyguard's dormitory. Dinia wanted me to do what I wanted myself. And that was the message that proved to me that she really had liked me, and not just used me to satisfy her desires.


	11. Reading and writing

Before I even was back on my feet again, Dinia told me that the master had ordered her to learn reading and writing. He had said that if he couldn't even sleep with her, he at least wanted to be able to converse with her in a sophisticated manner. She asked me if she she should leave the room for the lessons, so that I could get some rest. I determinedly shook my head. Reading and writing! If I would be able to learn that, then they could understand me.  
“Do you want to learn it, too?”  
I nodded and laughed at her.  
“Good, then I'll order the scribe to pay attention so that you can hear and see everything he tells me.”  
I thanked her with a smile, took her hand and squeezed it. She returned my smile and then said:  
“You saved my live. I'm happy that I can pay you back at least a bit.”  
When the scribe explained to her at the blackboard what the individual letters meant, I listened attentively. I observed their writing exercises and tried to memorise everything carefully.

Weeks passed. The bruises and strains from the punishment had by now faded so much that I was able to fully work again, but the mistress had insisted that my shift included the time of her lessons, so that I would be able to continue to learn.

One day, I finally had the letters together that I needed for my plead, took the chalkboard of the mistress and wrote: “Zadek probably wants to learn to write as well”.  
Sadly, even though I had tried my best to learn the letters correctly, I didn't look nearly as good as when the scribe wrote.  
“Kanto wrote something!”, the mistress had yelled excitedly.

The scribe came to me, looked at it and asked the mistress, if she was able to read it.  
“No. Not really, yet.”  
“Then I'll copy it for you, neatly.”  
The scribe did as promised and helped the mistress to read the sentence. My following try to convince the mistress to allow Zadek the participation in our lessons was crowned with success, even though to this day I am still wondering how they managed to understand me since for my next sentences, most of the letters I would have needed to write something meaningful down I simply couldn't recall. Unprompted, the mistress gifted me her chalkboard so that I always had something to write onto.

Koris was the next person I used to test my newfound ability. He had, when the master had appointed him a commanding officer, learned to write and read on his order, and so he could understand me. And my work alone gave me reasons enough to talk to him, already. Apart from that though, he was also a person I really liked. At dinner, like most times I sat down next to him,but this time I got my chalkboard out and answered his questions in writing.  
“You amaze me time and time again, Kanto. How did you manage to learn to write in such a short time? I needed three years until I was more or less able.”, he said.  
“You can speak. You had no reason to really want it.”, I wrote in answer.  
He suddenly looked very sad.


	12. If I wouldn't know that you've got nothing in your pants, I could almost be jealous

It started when Dinia, while she groomed herself, combed her fingers through my hair shyly. Then we started to hold hands, gave each other small kisses when nobody was looking. Finally, we sometimes laid in bed together and caressed each other when it was Zando's shift and the master was out of house. We were careful and it wasn't very often, but those hours very precious to us.

Every day, I was excited for my shift with her, tried to think of a way to bring joy to her and,  
from time to time, I managed to come up with something to conjure a smile.

We talked to each other often and long. Since speaking is much faster than writing, she told me a lot and I only wrote a few sentences. Still, I recounted almost my entire life.

One day she took her lunch with the master and I, as always during such occasions, stood diagonally behind her and kept guard. Sometimes she threw me a quick look, a remark, and we laughed. I was glad to see her happy. Suddenly the master said, in a contemptuously-amused tone:  
“If I wouldn't know that you've got nothing in your pants, I could almost be jealous.”

Like on reflex, my hand flinched toward my sword to draw it and cut off his head. Violently, I fought that impulse. My vision turned black. I forcibly relaxed my balled fists and compelled my face to a calm expression. The hands of his guards moved towards their swords, they turned deathly pale when they saw the fury in my face and realized how close I had come to killing my master.

I actually should have been glad that he wasn't interested in the fact that I was in love with his wife. Jolly glad, because otherwise he would have had me executed or worse. How could we have been this careless, to let him know? But – he had almost killed her, how could the heartless piece of dirt that he was make fun of the most beautiful thing that I had in this life? The master, though, only laughed at me when he saw how shaken I was.

“That idiot.” I thought, “How can he be stupid enough to make fun of a trained warrior. And that, after he saw how I grabbed for my sword. It wouldn't have taken much for me to hack off his head – and his guards wouldn't have been fast enough to protect him: They only reacted when I had already controlled the impulse myself.”

In the evening, Koris came into our room. He sent the servant girl away, closed the door behind him and said:  
“I heard that that you two have billed and cooed so much that the master said that he would be jealous if he didn't know you to be a eunuch. Is that true?”  
I nodded.  
Heavens, Kanto – you, at least, really should know better!”  
I wrote: “I do know better, that's why he is still alive.”  
The leader of the guard took a deep breath.  
“You don't want to understand me, huh?”  
I only looked at him angrily.  
“Mistress, Kanto, you two will not talk to each other in the presence of the master or in public. No word that isn't absolutely necessary for Kanto's duties as a bodyguard. You will not smile at each other. You will not talk to each other through gestures or in written form. You will act as if you two didn't know each other, understood?” The sharp, commanding tone that was used to spell out that last word was unambiguous.

I nodded.  
“No matter what he says, Kanto, the master is jealous of you. And he has a reason for it, because his wife loves you and nobody else. He will make more of these cruel jokes in the following days and weeks, and from now on you will not let anybody see what you think about them, understood?”  
I nodded.  
“Kanto, you already look like you want to strangle somebody with your bare hands again. Do you even have yourself under enough control to follow my orders?” His voice sounded much softer now.

I nodded and wrote:  
I had myself under control when his joke came completely unexpected. Now, when I'm prepared, it will be easier.”  
“What you two do in private and without witnesses is your choice. But when somebody else is watching, you are merely bodyguard and mistress,nothing else.”  
I nodded and relaxed myself. So he wasn't against our relationship. He was only worried about me.  
“Mistress, you too must listen to my advice. Kanto was caught with the wife of his master in bed once. He lost his tongue and his penis for that. You don't want to be the reason for there being done something much worse to him?”  
Dinia burst into tears. I pressed her to me. It was, of course, not the same. The former mistress had ordered me into her bed, even though I had asked her not to do it. Dinia and I, on the other hand, were really in love with each other – and, recklessly, we had completely forgotten the world around us because of it.

I can count on you two, right?” said Koris.  
I nodded.  
“I didn't want to put him in danger! I love him!”, said Dinia.  
“You know, for all intends and purposes the master didn't deserve anything better. He almost killed you. But you shouldn't risk your lives through such recklessness.”  
I nodded and kissed the mistress. Koris looked at us both, smiled and shook his head. Still smiling, he left the room.

Afterwards, we strictly followed his advice.


	13. As to not hurt the feelings of a bodyguard

It was a huge festival. Many of the powerful had been invited and Koris had made very clear to us bodyguards that we would have to be especially attentive, since many of the guests were on the outs with the master.

So I accompanied the mistress on her way to the festival ground, and made sure to always stand in a position that would allow me to stop any armed person in time.

Suddenly one of the men yelled, in a sharp, commanding tone, “Now!” - immediately, his companions drew their weapons – and I had mine drawn immediately, as well, attacked the foremost one, slay two more that had run toward my master with brandished swords. My fellows had reacted only a split second later, that's why they hadn't been able to get between the master and the attackers in time. But now they were at my side and took care of the remaining enemies.

After the fight, the physician came to me and asked if I was hurt. I nodded.  
“Badly?”  
I shook my head “no”. It was only a shallow cut in my shoulder.  
“Good. Then I will care for the others, first.”  
I nodded.

Zadek knelt on the floor a few meters away from me, and clutched his left wrist. A blow had almost completely severed his hand. When the physician broke the news to him, that there was nothing he could do except to amputate, Zadek began to cry. I worried greatly about him, because I remembered just too well how my former master had cut Randi's throat because he would have needed to have his arm amputated in order to survive. When I saw the fear on Zadeks face, I knew that he had had the same thought. I laid my arm around his shoulder and held him, while the physican severed the hand completely and then tightly wrapped the stump in bandages. Afterwards, he wrapped my arm as well. I stayed with Zadek while the mistress helped the physician to care for the other injured.

The next morning, the master had called for me. He thanked me for saving his own life and that of his wife.

Zadek was allowed to recover for some time, took up his fight training again as soon as the physician allowed him to and continued to be Dinias bodyguard. However I noticed by the fact that whenever there was real danger, an additional bodyguard was signed in, that Koris didn't count him as a full guard. Obviously it was only done this way as to not hurt the feelings of a bodyguard who had been hurt in a fight.


	14. The enslaved monk

Soon after that, the master had had another scribe bought, as the old one had died of a disease. Since both Dinia and I liked to read, we had interacted with him regularly, and the fact that he had been able to read and write had made it possible for me to speak with him.

The new scribe was a strange person, who talked seldom and most often wore a gentle smile on his face. Every morning he vanished for half an hour, but as soon as he was back, he went to work in a jovial mood. Somehow that had made me curious, even if I wasn't entirely sure, why.

So eventually I waited for him to stand up and followed him into his morning hideout. He hadn't been excited about that at all, and asked me why I was following him. I took out my chalkboard and wrote: “I am curious why you are in such a good mood every morning. When you explain that to me, I will leave you again.”  
I could tell by his face that my question had calmed him.  
“Oh, I'm only meditating.”

When I continued asking, he at first had started to cry. I wasn't particularly astonished about that, since every slave has more than enough reason for grief. I soothed him and asked, why he had cried. So he told me about his time before he had been made a slave. He had been born the younger son of a farmer and sent into a monastery by his father, since he wouldn't be inheriting the farm.  
“You know, I actually didn't want to go, but it was nice there.”  
He told about how at first, he had been sad because of the homesickness he had experienced as a small child. I've never been homesick, because there never had been anything that could have caused me to be. But the monks had been very kind and understanding with the small boy, when they had introduced him to live in the monastery, and gradually he began to realize that he loved the long meditations and the peaceful monastery life. And then the slave hunter had come and captured, castrated and shackled every monk, and, after a long march, had sold them here on the slave market.  
“And now I'm homesick for my monastery.”, he said.

I asked him what the meditation was supposed to be good for, and he explained to me that you become happier because of it and that it allows you to experience the love of god. Since that sounded interesting, I asked him if he could teach me and he promised.

So from that day on, I meditated with him every morning.


	15. Jealousy

The officer Koris had, as it seemed, advised the master well when it came to how to treat women. Because after he had had a stern talk with the master, the master had treated Dinia very respectfully and friendly and tried to gain her affection through many small gifts, interesting activities and insightful conversations. Slowly but surely, he became successful and he even managed to get her to go to bed with him out of free will – at first, under the promise that she would only be petted, later he even managed to convey the joy of sex to her.

She told everybody, no matter if they wanted to hear it or not, how amazing her husband was and what wonderful traits he had and it only hurt me. I remembered the time when my former mistress had ordered my into her bed to have sex with me. And even though I hadn't liked her, the sex itself I had enjoyed. And all of that was now, of course, impossible even though since her husband's time was limited I spent more time in bed with her than he did. Than she got pregnant and I realized that I wanted nothing more in the world, than a child of my own. Namely, from her. And that of course was even more impossible than real sex.

And then I had a person right in front of my nose who had all the things that I wanted so much in life, and smugly thought of them as his god-given right. If you ask me, though, he had them because he continued the practise of slavery in his territory, because he encouraged the castration of boys and prisoners of war, and because he stole from others - and I despised him for it.

On the other hand, it would do nothing good for me to oppose him. The only intelligent reaction was to strengthen his relationship to my love even more, because that guaranteed her and my safety.

In the beginning of their love relationship, I had had great difficulty dealing with my emotions. It was the monk who had cared for me, who had convinced me to share my emotions with him and who showed me how you could use meditation to better deal with a difficult life situation, by organizing your thoughts.


	16. Write a book about your thoughts

When the monk proposed the idea of writing a book about my life and how I thought about this culture for the first time, I declared him insane.  
“There are so many books about the thoughts of the rich and powerful, and none about those of slaves. And you think about important things.”, he said.  
“And when the master reads it, he will kill me.”, I wrote.  
“We could hide it for as long as you are alive and afterwards smuggle it into the library.”, he said.  
That didn't seem very feasible to me, because what hideout could possibly be safe enough to write and hide a book there, and be sure that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands at the worst possible moment?

But the thought of a book was something I couldn't shake off, because I really wanted to cut the masters down to size, namely as much of them as possible and in a way to make it impossible for them to simply forget about it again. I tried for almost a year to talk myself out of this very dangerous scheme, before I told the monk that I would be writing the book and showed him the draft for the first page, that described my first year of live in short, on my chalkboard.

He read through it, and started to cry.  
“How were you able to endure that?”, he asked.  
“I didn't know any different, so I thought it was normal.” I wrote in the spot where I had said before that I would indite the book.  
I thought to myself that the person who came up with all the mantras about meditating obviously had to have had a few bad experiences more, than my dear monk, otherwise those mantras couldn't have helped that much.

One of the central mantras was, that you have to perceive and accept the world as it is and plan your actions from that point. To fight your fate doesn't make the word better, and an action that stems from a world that you wish for, leads to failures in life. And in the end, there is nothing you can do except to endure the life that you were born into. The only choice you have is whether you make the best of it, or make everything even worse by acting improvidently.


	17. Dinia's births

Before the first child of Dinia, my mistress, was born, a heavily pregnant woman was bought as a wet nurse. She gave birth to her own child roughly two weeks before Dinia, a little boy, and they had him castrated and his tongue cut out directly after birth. I had told everybody who had anything to do with that decision my opinion of the matter in written form, and could not prevent it. The physician then said, in all seriousness, that children this young wouldn't notice when you castrated them. You would be able to tell be the fact that they couldn't remember, later. Ah, and that's why they scream so much during it, I wrote, but he didn't seem impressed in the least.

Dinia nursed her child – a sweet little girl that she had called Narnia – only, when I gave it to her and she felt like it. The wet nurse, following the orders that were given to her, nursed Dinia's daughter Narnia first. Only after that she fed her own child that, after his tongue had been cut out, bawled every time that it tried to drink. When I thought about the pain I had felt after they did that to me, I had no doubt at all as to why he screamed like that and, in the first week afterwards, became visibly thinner. But I soon noticed that he didn't get enough and organized some goat milk from the women to supplement.

Even after that, both of the women cared almost exclusively for Narnia. I cared for the little eunuch because I didn't want him to be sad. When the children became older, the women continued to mostly care about the little girl and ignored my fosterling.

I convinced Dinia to let the children learn reading and writing as soon as they entered the age where children start to speak, and because she didn't want to do that herself she ordered the monk. I wrote little cards with a picture and a short story that I thought they would like, and the monk found a small booklet that had obviously been written by someone else for children's reading lessons. He, at least, showed an interest in my little boy and managed to motivate him so much that within a year, he had learned enough to be able to hold small conversations with me. His small hands were still so uncoordinated and clumsy that he had to write very big letters for it to be readable, but at least he could make himself understandable from there on.

All I all, Dinia had three children, one girl and two boys.

I was there for the birth every time. The first time, the women had wanted to throw me out with the reasoning that a birth is nothing for men to attend. I simply remained seated at the head end of Dinias bed. When she then had also told them that she wanted me there, and that without me she would be scared, they finally let me be. I also think that they didn't have the bravery to try it with violence, because after all I was a trained warrior. I had prepared myself to see agony and blood, and therefore wasn't overly shocked when it happened that way. I had stayed to support her emotionally, and soon realized that it took my entire concentration. The processes of giving birth seemed to have awakened the memories of the almost-deadly rape on the first day of her marriage. I had to remind her several times where she was, and that she had to follow the instructions for the birth to be over as fast as possible.

Only afterwards did I have the time to worry about what I had seen. There had simply been too much blood. Like with an injury in battle, where there was a danger of dying from it. The midwife couldn't read, so I asked my superior officer to ask her if that was normal, that there had been so much blood. I then came to know that the midwife had advised Dinia not to have any more children, because otherwise she would risk dying during the next birth.

Dinia hadn't listened to her, even when, during her next birth, she almost bled to death again. I really think that the midwife had been right, when she said that this was caused by the abuse in the beginning of the marriage. But Dinia didn't want to believe that and stubbornly insisted that it hadn't been any different than it would have been for other women, and that she had a happy marriage. She even denied that she had almost bled out during those first days of her marriage. I think, she really did forget it.

And so I was there for every birth and when the contractions began, she suddenly started crying and said that her husband had hurt her so terribly, and that there was blood everywhere on the bed. That was obviously a memory of the first terrible nights of their marriage, because at that point in time there was neither her husband, nor blood in the bed. I stroked her hair and comforted her, then. When the contractions became stronger, she was clearly in real pain, because her moans were directly connected to them and she wept bitterly the entire time. I held her in my arms and calmed her, completely focused on giving her as much love and support as possible, because she really needed more of that than a person can give.

The third time, her crying after the birth simply didn't stop, until eventually she was too weak to continue. I noticed exactly when she left the body, because suddenly there was only a lump of flesh left there, that I could not meet with that love and care. I stood up and went into the garden, to the place where I had always meditated, because the child was cared for by the wet nurse and there was nothing else for me to do.

I cried.


	18. If I wanted an uprising, I wouldn't have written a book

The master had caught me when I sat alone in the library. He held the first volume of my book in his hand and looked shaken. When I saw what he had there in his hand, my heart nearly stopped.  
“Can you please tell me what this is supposed to be?”, he asked me indignantly.  
Since I had to take out my chalkboard out first, I had a second to gather myself and get my trembling fingers under control again. Then, I wrote:  
“I think that you have identified it correctly. After all, my name and what it is about are stated boldly on the cover.”  
“Are you planning an uprising?”, he asked indignantly.  
“If I were planning that, I wouldn't have written a book, because the only people here that can read are those that definitely wouldn't support such a proposition.”, I explained. “No, I want you to read this book, understand it and realize how the people that you are responsible for feel.”  
He read, went red in the face, unsuccessfully attempted to say something and then stormed out. I stayed where I was, and tried to continue writing my just-started second volume but didn't manage to gather the necessary concentratin.

As a matter of fact, a riot would have been senseless, since it would simply have replaced a ruler that treated his slaves like people most of the time with another – that possibly would have been worse. So it was more promising to try to change the master that was already there – and to raise his children properly.

I was afraid, but knew that there was nothing I could have done at the moment. The monk came from the neighbouring room and asked what had happened. I then wrote that the master had found my book, added his questions onto the chalkboard and wrote, below: “and then he walked away.” The monk's reaction gave me the impression that he had, in all seriousness, believed to be able to hide the book for as long as necessary. I hadn't counted on that at all, since the writing alone takes much too long. But if I had known that he wouldn't be catching me during writing, but that he'd find the book instead, I would not have put my name on it. That had only seemed like the much less probable option to me. Well, for all intends and purposes he had – without noticing it – caught me writing, so in that sense leaving the name out would have been senseless, anyway.

Koris took a while longer to show up.  
“Say, are you crazy?”, he asked me while coming in.  
I shrugged and showed the chalkboard with the short conversation on it to him, as well. There is an advantage to written communication, after all: you don't need to say everything thrice!  
“Have you got any clue how angry he was, back there?”  
“I saw it.”, I wrote.  
“Say, do you not understand the danger you are in right now? He must've probably told me five times just how he wants to have you executed, before I could talk him out of it.”  
That, however, amused me.  
“Was it the same method every time?”, I asked curiously.  
“No, he came up with something new every time.”  
“Then he probably just wanted to vent his rage.”, I wrote.  
Koris looked at me, perplexed. Probably thought about a thing or two that he wanted to throw back at me, but in the end he only said:  
“I just don't know if I actually managed to talk him out of the execution. I've never seen him so angry.”, and cried.  
I hugged him and wrote, after he'd more or less gathered himself:  
“It's a little late for me to contemplate not writing the book. We can only wait and see how bad it is. By the way, it's time for training.”  
When I stood up to go, he threw me a stunned look and then followed me, shaking his head. I just thought to myself, that it would be better for me to go train like on every other day, instead of sitting around and worrying. After all, I had already decided that I wasn't going to flee. It would have been different, of course, if I had been sure that he was going to have me executed, but with every lesser punishment I would rather just have taken it and stayed. After all, here was the only home I had ever had and here lived the people that I loved.

In the end, the master stunned me. Because he did not punish me at all, and after three days he even ordered me to finish the book. He considered it interesting.


	19. My little boy

After Dinia's death, the master suddenly became much more friendly towards me, and began to ask me for my political opinion, and just talked a lot more to me in general. Obviously Koris had been right when he said that my master was jealous of Dinia's love to me, after all. And when I asked him about it, he admitted so. In my book I had written my thoughts about him pretty bluntly, that's why I had wondered so much about why he hadn't punished me. But obviously the man did possess a few good qualities, that I, blind with jealousy, hadn't had wanted to acknowledge.

The fewest people would have continued to treat a slave fairly, if they were as jealous as he had been.  
Every child of Dinia had had a wet nurse. Luckily, the wet nurses of the boys had birthed girls, as those were allowed to grow up intact. I made sure that all children learned reading and writing, even those of the lord's concubines that were born after Dinia's first child – only so I could talk to them, at all. But still it is unexplainable to me why all the children wanted to play with me in particular, why they obeyed me better than their own father and why they were around me all the time. But at least it lead to me being able to raise them in the way that I found right.

My favourite though, was still the little boy of the first wet nurse, that they had castrated and whose tongue they had cut out. That was mainly because, except for me, nobody really wanted to care for him.

Because I was very aware of the fact that he would be, as soon as he was old enough, trained to be a bodyguard and that two thirds of all boys chosen to be guards were killed in the first two years, I animated him to play all kinds of different fighting games as often as possible. I taught him how to hold a sword correctly and made sure that he memorized the movements correctly, long before the actual fight training could even start.

Koris, the officer, may have claimed that children this young couldn't be trained to fight yet. But when you take care and make sure that they have fun, and that they see it as an amusing game, they are able to learn a lot. You just can't expect them to show the seriousness and perseverance that you can demand from older boys.

When my boy was old enough to be actually trained, Koris was amazed by his skill, too. But I did have to stop him several times, so that he wasn't expecting things from my child that could only be carried out by much older children. And even though I had to chide him regularly and remind him of the boy's age, Koris kept to my notions about the training of my boy – under the condition that I was training every boy of the same age in fighting every now and then, so that they wouldn't feel neglected.

The boys obviously benefited from it, because from that point on I had ten little slave boys around that wanted to be near me outside of the normal training as well, and reacted to every friendly gesture with even more attachment. In a short amount of time, I had taken them all into my heart.

After two years of basic training, they were seen as old enough to be assigned as guards – and the year after that was the worst of my live, because of those ten boys, only three survived. Every one that had somehow been involved in a fight was dead afterwards. And my little boy was one of them. He was only twelve when he died.


	20. The injury

When the oldest of the children were about fifteen, a dying horse fell on top of me during a fight and broke my femur. It had been a closed fracture, but the bone never healed and fused together again and every step that I took hurt like hell. So I tried to take as few steps as possible, which the master made easier for me by gifting me a horse and furnishing a room for me right next to the stable. I went for a long ride with this horse, out into the desert, every morning because it needed movement and I needed to be able to see something else except for walls, and the path into the garden was too long for me.

So, as soon as I woke up I put on my clothes, stood on my good leg, opened the door to the horsebox and called my horse into my room to be saddled. I saddled and combed it down, while sitting on my bed, pulled myself onto its back and rode out into the courtyard.

I had made them attach a few straps onto the saddle, to be able to fixate my leg in a way that caused as little pain as possible and strapped myself on the saddle with an additional strap, like one does with an unconscious person. I could have kept myself on the saddle without these measures, but if I had ended up falling anyway, there would have been no way for me to pull myself back up.

The others had tried to talk me out of my morning rides, since I now allegedly couldn't protect myself any more and should be taking somebody else with me, but I thought differently and just did what I wanted.

Nature waking in the early morning hours was simply too beautiful to me for it to be spoiled by some random person interrupting me because he doesn't appreciate it enough. Maybe I would have taken the monk with me, but he didn't want to because he was scared of horses and he wouldn't have been able to protect me, anyway.

Besides, I had my sword with me, and nobody ever attacked me.

But as a fighter, I was of course useless after my injury and therefore I worked as a scribe, instead. I was content with that, because it meant that I could work beside my friend, the monk, and because the children regularly came into the scriptorium and told me their worries. In the evening, they all came because then the older children took turns reading aloud. Especially popular was – for whatever reason – my book.

Still, all the other books in the library were being read through and new ones were bought.

The leg was a constant torture and got worse with every year. Every time I stumbled and put skme weight on it on accident, or when somebody inadvertently bumped against it, there was a sharp and sudden pain, as if somebody would stab it with a knife. But I though that in reality, it had to be the splintered bone, whose sharp-edged lower part bore itself further into my muscle every time I tread on my leg.

After three years, the bone had pierced itself through the skin, and the open wound that resulted got infected so badly that the physician had to amputate. To my great relief, I had virtually no pain after that - “If I had known that, I would have just asked the physician to amputate the useless leg immediately!”, I thought to myself, but I'm not sure if I actually would have done that, because somehow I had always hoped that it would heal, after all.

Anyway, I walked a lot more with my crutches after the amputation and had, after the strap construction was changed in a way that made riding possible for me, a lot more fun while riding as well, because now not every motion was connected to awful pain any more.


	21. There, now you don't have to suffer any more

First I watched the girl marry, and then the boys, and I noticed that their young wives were very fearful when the wedding night began. Conforming to the rites of our country, they hadn't been allowed to see their husbands before the marriage, and now they were supposed to go to bed with a stranger. At least, every one of them later told me that it had been nice and the midwife had confirmed to me that they hadn't been hurt. Well, I had written pretty unambiguously, in my book, what had caused Dinia's death after the third birth.

I survived my master and watched his sons rise to power. After that, no eunuchs were bought in our household any more and no little boys were castrated. I advised his sons in their political decisions and was present for all important conferences, allegedly to indite all the important documents, but actually so that I could afterwards say what I thought about all the different people.

In this live, I became relatively old. I had been barely thirty when the horse fell on top of me. When my own horse got too old to carry me, they gifted me another one and when that one died of old age, a third one. I saw Dinia's grandchildren and great-grandchildren grow up and marry and to them, too, I was an important person whose advice they wanted to read in every condition of life.

Well, maybe it just was because I listened to them intendly instead of telling them wisdoms they didn't want to hear all the time. Since writing is relatively strenuous when compared to speaking, you learn to confine yourself to the essentials.

In the year when Dinia's first great-great-grandchild was born – a sweet, little girl – I got a cold that never really went away again, and that became gradually worse. Week after week it worsened and I soon realized that eventually, one of my coughing fits, that got more severe every time, would kill me. When I coughed up blood for the first time it startled me, because I didn't want to leave this family that I was so comfortable in. I wanted to see Dinia's great-grandchildren learn walking and speaking, I wanted to see the girl grow up and marry. I fought furiously against the disease and did not want to accept it. But I coughed up more blood every day and the physician couldn't think of anything to stop it.

I thought that was unfair: When you finally managed to arrange your life the way you wanted, you had to die! And I wondered about myself: Why couldn't I of all people, a probably one hundred year old who even got to see the great-great-grandchild of his love, accept my own death? It wasn't like I was a teenager, with his whole live still in front of him. I was ancient, crippled, mute, castrated and I wasn't afraid of death, wasn't bothered by the pain either, but I was only appalled that I couldn't see another child, that I loved, grow up? Yes, I didn't even have to worry that something could happen to the child. The family would care for it well. What was wrong with me, then?

My indignant revolting was of no use, of course, I had stayed relatively healthy up until a high age, but now my body quit it's service. It wasn't strong enough to overcome the disease any more, and got continually weaker. Soon enough, I lacked the strength to get up – and somewhere, was astonished about my fury about this death that I saw in front of me. Whenever I was awake, there was always somebody sitting next to my bed and I relished it. Sometimes one of the women, sometimes one of the men, sometimes there were children too, but those weren't supposed to touch me. They had been told to keep at least on metre away from me, so that they wouldn't infect themselves.

Eventually, Edin, the current master of the house sat next to me bed. I was having one of those fierce coughing fits again, during which I coughed up so much blood. I saw a sudden hand movement, felt a short pain in my neck, then I was suddenly above my own body. He had cut my throat.  
“That idiot!”, I thought.  
“There, now you don't have to suffer any more.”, I heard him say.

With the realization that he hadn't meant anything bad, I burst out crying.


End file.
